How to structure #includes in C

Question

Say I have a C program which is broken to a set of *.c and *.h files. If code from one file uses functions from another file, where should I include the header file? Inside

Answer 1

I include the most minimal set of headers possible in the .h file, and include the rest in the .c file. This has the benefit of sometimes reducing compilation times. Given your example, if foo.h doesn't really need bar.h but includes it anyway, and some other file includes foo.h, then that file will be recompiled if bar.h changes, even though it may not actually need or use bar.h.